Now they all lie here together under their pompous canopies, and whatever may be the real dramas of those fierce and turbulent lives, the great porphyry sarcophagi combine to turn a face of cynical and haughty silence to the importunate questioning of peeping tourists. In 1781 the tombs were opened by the Spanish King Ferdinand I., who found Constance’s son Frederick robed and crowned, with sword and orb beside his pillow, and almost lifelike in preservation. Henry too was almost unchanged by the six hundred years that had passed in such change and turmoil beyond the walls of his silent tomb, and he lay wrapped from head to heel in yellow silk with the heavy blond tresses of his wife laid upon his breast, still golden despite the lapse of long centuries, but “nulle ne peut dire si c’est le dernier sacrifice d’une femme dévouée, ou l’homage ironique d’une reine contrainte à choisir entre deux devoirs; placée entre son époux et son peuple, entre sa famille et sa patrie.” 253Gaspero was a gift—a priceless parting gift from the Northman, who had gone farther south to the Punic shores from whence had come the first settlers of the Palermian Coast. And to console Jane and Peripatetica for the loss of his charming boyish gaiety he had made over to them that treasure. For Gaspero not only drove the smartest and most comfortable of all the victorias on hire to the public, but he was an artist in the matter of sight-seeing. A true gastronome, mingling flavours with delicate wisdom; keeping delicious surprises up his sleeve lest one’s spirit might pall, and mingling tombs and sunshine, crypts and “molto bella vistas,” history and the colourful daily life of the people, with a masterhand. And all so fused in the warm atmosphere of his own sympathetic and indulgent spirit that “touristing” became a feast of the soul unknown to those not guided by his discreet and skilful judgment. He knew where one might purchase honey which bees had brewed from orange flowers into a sublimated perfume; and he introduced them to certain patisseries at Cafleisch’s that gave afternoon tea a new meaning.